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Tech Tuesday: ThinkMusic announcement

Last week I mentioned about an amazing notation app coming soon from ThinkMusic. At the time of that post, they said they will have a big announcement in a week. The announcement came today and I must confess I was a little disappointed. What I didn’t expect was their announcement was asking for financial support of this app through KickStarter. This came to a surprise to me, as I thought this app was way past the point of needing KickStarter. All the advertising and hoopla of what this app could be came across that it was in the finishing stages.

Now if you are not familiar with Kickstarter… Kickstarter is actually a great resource for people who have these wonderful ideas but don’t have the funding to make it real. People like you and me donate money to back the project and allow it to happen. ThinkMusic is asking for $170,00. They have until February 17th to get funded or…., well if they don’t get funded I’m not sure what their next step will be. As of right this second they have $3,585 donated. There are several donation options that promise certain perks if you financially support this project. The one that I am considering is the $20 donation because when the app becomes a reality, I will get the app for free and save $10.00. So in my mind, it’s like pre-purchasing something at a discount. Worst case scenario is I donated my $20 and the project failed, I could be out $20.00, however I can count it as a donation and write it off.

Which brings me to a question I always wondered about, what if the project fails and never happens? ThinkMusic says on their Kickstarter page that they anticipate the project will be finished by October 2013, less than a year away. However there is nothing that makes sure that happens. Kickstarter has a great FAQ page on accountability to those that ask for funding. It’s well worth the read so you know what you are getting into.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for supporting projects like this one. I just like to make sure I make safe investments. So for me personally a safe investment is $20.00. What that is to you, well… that is up to you to determine. I hope they do get the funding they need and more importantly I hope that I will be using this app on my iPad in October 2013!

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4 thoughts on “Tech Tuesday: ThinkMusic announcement”

The good news is that you won’t actually lose your money if the Kickstarter project fails, Jennifer! The way Kickstarter works is that it is all-or-nothing. If they don’t reach their $170,000 goal, they won’t get any of it (and the supporters won’t get charged for their donations).

I probably didn’t do a good job clarifying that. If the funding fails I won’t lose any money. However, if the funding goes through but the project itself doesn’t happen, then I could potentially lose my money. (This is where I linked to the FAQ page to find out what the accountability in that case is). However I’m pretty confidant that won’t happen in this case. Thanks for mentioning that. I don’t think I made that clear.